“Well, it’s pretty simple,” she says, lifting her right hand and extending her index finger, crooking her left index finger into it as she counts off her reasoning. “First, doing this gives me a much better sense of control over the heat needed to cook the meat all the way through. I can control my own body temperature, and I can make fire with my fingers, but as soon as I use that fire to make a campfire or light a stove, it’s out of my control. I can <b>make</b> fire, but I can’t <b>unmake</b> fire. I can control the way the meat cooks this way much easier, in my experience.”
She extends her middle finger and hooks her left index finger into that as well. “Second, because my heat doesn’t use any sort of fuel, you don’t get any kind of weird, clinging taste to it. No smoky ‘burnt wood’ taste, or any dirty charcoal, or anything like that. You don’t have to worry about having too much or too little fuel, either.”
She hooks her index finger into her ring finger. “And finally, depending on how tough the meat is, or how much of it there is, it can be hard to tell just how thoroughly cooked-through it is, you know? You could stand at a meat spit and crank it for hours, but it might be too cooked on one side, or not cooked all the way through. Smaller meats need more focus, too, because they can burn really easily if you leave them for just a second too long. This one, you’ll just need to take my word for it, but it’s easier for me to intuit that a food is ready-cooked once it gets there because I can feel it directly on my skin. You’re not about to grab a pork sirloin right off the grill with your bare hands to test how cooked it is.”
Agnimitra reaches up behind her head, grasping for something; eventually, her fingers find the handle of a metal spatula that she’s placed there beforehand. “Speaking of, this one needs flipping,” she says, pointing to a slab of steak just beneath her ribs as she hands you the spatula. “If you don’t mind. I hope you like your steak well-done.”